Consuming raw meat should only be done with the strictest of safety precautions. Please read this first and understand that consumption of any raw foods is done at your own risk.
Chef James and I have been fiddling with tried and true recipes this week to make them fit our raw experiment and have discovered an interesting thing. There’s this perception that to eat raw is excessively time consuming due to lots of additional preparation time.
Well, that may be the case for a raw vegan diet where you’re needing to find creative raw ways to get enough protein (this means lots of soaking, sprouting, and fancy configuring), but when you’re eating a raw primal diet – as in: one that includes raw animal protein – it’s actually LESS work than eating cooked food.
Here’s why: you don’t have to cook the meat!
That might be so obvious it’s not even worth saying, but it was something neither of us had considered. Simply thaw the meat in the refrigerator, thinly slice and serve! Wow.
Here’s one of the recipes we ate a couple of times this week. We made the batch of “couscous” on one evening (definitely the most time consuming aspect of the meal and a favorite raw trick of ours we’ve been using for a while), and then saved the leftovers for lunch the next day.
Raw Cauliflower Couscous with Beef Carpaccio
Ingredients:
- 1 head cauliflower, coarsely chopped
- 1 carrot
- 1 Tbsp fresh mint,
- 2 Tbsp parsley
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 lime, juiced
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 Tbsp raw butter, per person
- 1/2 avocado, diced per person
- 3oz raw grass fed beef filet per person, very thinly sliced
- Sea salt and black pepper to taste
Directions:
Put the cauliflower in your food processor and pulse until the texture resembles couscous. Depending on the size of your food processor and the size of the head of cauliflower, you may have to do this in a few batches. Put the processed cauliflower aside in a mixing bowl.
Combine the carrot, mint, parsley, and garlic in the processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add to the cauliflower, along with the lime juice, and olive oil. Mix well. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
At this point, you can either store the couscous in the refrigerator (the flavors will meld nicely over time) or you can serve immediately.
Before serving, scoop out the number of servings into a separate bowl and add as much raw butter, avocado, and thinly sliced raw filet as you need for the number of people eating. You may want to add a little more sea salt and pepper to your taste. Mix well and enjoy immediately!
Note: We plated this recipe a couple of ways. The photo above shows the meat mixed in with the couscous. We also did this where we served the couscous and then laid out the avocado, butter, and beef carpaccio on top, which was visually quite lovely. Just another trick to mix it up!
